Chapter Seventeen #2
Jay stepped over Riley and dropped back into his chair. He held his hand out, panting slightly. “Give me the goddamn papers.”
“Calm down first,” Lionel said, exasperated.
Jay responded by reaching across the desk and downing Lionel’s scotch in one swift motion. The warmth hit his chest, and he hated how good it felt.
Luke and Lionel stared.
“Jay,” Lionel said, voice low and careful, “what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m calming down.” Jay set the glass down with a hard thud, ignoring him. “Give me the papers, Li. I’m done here.”
Luke attempted to help Riley up, but Riley shoved him away, standing slowly on his own. Bruises were already darkening under Riley’s eyes; Jay’s jaw ached from Riley’s grip. They’d both left their marks.
Lionel turned to Riley and Luke in an effort to control something. “Need me to call for a first-aid kit?”
Riley ignored Lionel altogether, his eyes boring into Jay. “Did she tell you she used to beg me to fuck her?”
Jay’s stomach churned. When he started to rise for another round, Lionel stood at last, stepping between them.
“Luke, take Riley to the front desk for a first-aid kit. Hospital if anything seems broken.” He waved them off as if clearing the room would somehow tame Jay.
“You two will meet with me later. I’ll let you know when. ”
Riley resisted, but Luke yanked him hard enough to get him moving. As they left, Luke threw one last look at Jay that looked like disappointment mixed with pity.
The door closed, and Lionel let out another long sigh as he sat back down.
“Well, I’m glad we all stayed calm here today.” He pulled a bottle of Macallan from under his desk, flipped the glass back upright to pour, and sipped. Leaning back, he eyed Jay with amusement. “So rehab was worth the money, huh?”
“Fuck you.” Jay stood, fists clenched by his sides. “I want out. And that motherfucker is not singing my words.”
Lionel set his glass down. “Yeah, that’s not going to work for us.”
“Then you’ll hear from my lawyer.”
With a snort, Lionel leaned forward. “You got a lawyer we don’t own?”
That fucking laugh made Jay’s blood boil.
He scanned the desk and found the termination agreement.
His hand trembled slightly as he picked up the pen.
For a moment he was nineteen again, Ari beside him in this same office. Both of them signing their first big contract. Ari’s shoulder pressed against his, neither of them able to stop grinning.
Jay signed his name. The drag of the pen felt like a tombstone being carved.
Lionel watched him with an unreadable expression. “You sure about this?”
Jay looked up at him, tossing the pen onto the desk. “Yeah. I am.”
Then he grabbed the bottle of Macallan and stormed toward the door.
Lionel called after him, but Jay didn’t look back.
He stood in the hallway, breathing hard, the bottle clutched in his hand.
His knuckles were split and bleeding. His jaw throbbed where Riley had grabbed him.
His head still pounded, and the scotch he’d downed was mixing with the vodka, creating a warm, nauseating buzz.
His phone vibrated with a new message on the screen.
Ava: How’s it going? Thinking about you. <3
He stared at the message, at the heart emoji—the proof that she loved him, even though he was destroying everything.
He’d once sworn he’d never let alcohol turn him into a monster.
He’d seen how it corrupted his father. It’d made his mom cry, split Ari’s lip, and caused Mira to hide in closets.
But here he was, drunk and violent at a business meeting.
And now he was walking out with a three hundred dollar bottle of scotch.
He needed to call David. If he got a ride home, he could hide the Macallan bottle and clean himself up before Ava finished her shift in the morning. He could come up with a story about the meeting, his bloody knuckles, and why he smelled like a distillery.
He just needed to lie to her again.
His phone buzzed. He looked at the bottle in his hand, then pocketed the phone and unscrewed the cap. Took a long pull.
He started walking down the hallway, into the elevator, and then out onto the street. His feet carried him without direction.
The late morning sun was an assault. Jay squinted against it, the Macallan bottle swinging at his side as he drifted down 2nd Avenue.
People gave him a wide berth.
He took another pull.
His phone kept buzzing. Ava. Probably Luke. Maybe Lionel. He ignored all of it.
At some point he stopped walking and leaned against the side of a building, letting the brick take his weight.
The city moved around him—cabs, tourists, a woman pushing a stroller, two guys in hard hats eating lunch on a low wall across the street.
Everyone going somewhere. Everyone with somewhere to be.
He took a long drink and watched them.
This was Nashville. His city. He’d played every stage worth playing within a ten-block radius, had his face on billboards, produced hundreds of songs, and had people scream his name until their throats gave out.
And right now he was a busted-up drunk leaning against a brick wall at eleven in the morning, and not one person recognized him.
He couldn’t decide if that was a relief or the saddest thing that had ever happened to him.
He pushed off the wall and kept walking.
The buildings blurred together as he headed toward Broadway. He could hear the music pumping from the honky-tonks already. Street performers and bachelorette parties in matching shirts clogged the intersection. All of it felt like background noise to the roaring in his head.
When he took another drink, he noticed the bottle was getting lighter. He grimaced at it just as a hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him around.
David’s face swam into focus, his jaw set and eyes blazing with a fury Jay had never seen before.
“Get in the damn car.” David’s voice was tight, controlled in a way that made it sound more dangerous. “Right now.”
“I’m fine—”
“Boy, if you don’t get your drunk ass in that car!
” David’s grip tightened, his accent thicker than Jay had ever heard it.
“So help me God, I will drag you down this street myself. Is that what you want? You want every phone from here to Broadway to catch Jay Wyler getting hauled off like some kind of fool?”
Jay tried to pull away, but David was already steering him back the way he’d come, toward the Lincoln idling at the curb with its hazards flashing. He must have been circling, watching out for him.
David shoved him toward the back door then snatched the Macallan from his hand.
“Hey—”
“Don’t you ‘hey’ me.” David yanked the door open. “Get. In.”
Jay stumbled into the seat. David slammed the door hard enough to rattle the window before walking over and throwing the bottle in a nearby trashcan. He then rounded the car and slid behind the wheel.
He didn’t start driving. Just sat there, hands gripping the steering wheel so tight Jay could see the tendons standing out.
“You have any idea what almost happened back there?” David’s voice was shaking now. “Any goddamn idea?”
Jay stared at his bloody knuckles.
“I sat in this car and waited. Something told me you were gonna pull some shit today, and sure enough, here you come.” David’s laugh was bitter. “Three sheets to the wind, swigging straight from the bottle like you’ve lost your damn mind.”
“I’m not—”
“Half a block.” David turned to look at him, and his eyes were furious and devastated all at once.
“You were half a block from Broadway. Half a block from hundreds of phones pointed at you. From pictures of Jay Wyler drunk and bleeding plastered all over the internet by dinner time. From TMZ running stories about your ‘downfall’ for the next month.”
“I quit the band.”
David stared at him like he’d said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “You quit the band. So that means what, you can torch the rest of your life? Act like there’s nothing left worth protecting?”
“I’m not trying to—”
“Then what do you call this?” David gestured vaguely. “Because it looks an awful lot like you’re trying to blow your whole life up. And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you do it in the middle of downtown where everyone can see.”
Jay slumped in his seat.
“You know what would happen if those pictures hit? You’d get labelled a damn liability.
Labels and venues wouldn’t want shit to do with you.
You’re already skating a line after all these years.
” His voice hardened. “And what if Ava sees those pictures the same time as everyone else? That how you want her finding out?”
Jay didn’t bother arguing. He just crossed his arms and took the hit.
“I’m taking you home,” David said flatly, starting the engine. “You’re gonna sleep this shit off. And when you wake up, you’re gonna call that girl and tell her the truth about today. All of it.”
Jay’s head jerked up. “I can’t—”
“You can. Or I will.” There was no bluff in David’s words. “She deserves to know what kind of mess you’re making before she gets in any deeper.”
Jay turned to stare out the window as David pulled into traffic. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Again. He didn’t look.
“Four years I’ve been driving you around,” David said after a long silence, his voice quieter now but no less heavy.
“Seen you at your worst more times than I can count. Picked you up from bars, scraped you off bathroom floors, lied to people about where you were.” He exhaled hard.
“But this? Finding you on 2nd Avenue in broad daylight?” He shook his head.
“And who the hell did you hit and who hit you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jay managed.
David sighed. “Do I need to detour to the damn hospital?”
“No.”
Jay closed his eyes. The world spun behind his eyelids—the alcohol, the adrenaline from the fight, the shame all mixing together into nausea.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
David stared straight ahead.
“I know you are,” he finally said, and his voice was tired. “But sorry doesn’t mean much if you keep doing the same damn thing.”
The Lincoln turned toward Jay’s condo. They were slowly moving further away from the crowds who might’ve captured everything.
Jay didn’t feel grateful or saved. All he felt was the weight of fucking up again. He had to be pulled back from the edge like a child who couldn’t be trusted on his own.
He was so tired—tired of thinking and tired of the voice in his head that sounded like his father and told him he’d never be anything but a weakness everyone else had to manage.
Maybe the bastard was right.